


(In)Completely Whole

by Whookami



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Multi, Parenthood, Starts off as Stoncy, gets angsty from there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23010574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whookami/pseuds/Whookami
Summary: Sometimes love isn’t enough. Sometimes the things you need just can’t be reconciled with the life you’re currently living. Sometimes you need to make sacrifices in order to make others happy. Sometimes you simply have to suffer.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	(In)Completely Whole

He left the house again. Said he needed to cool off. 

  


He was never much good at fighting. With his fists or his words. Steve was only confident when no one fought back. When challenged he ran. 

  


It wasn’t hard to figure out where he would go, but they let him. They knew he needed this time, needed to find some place to shove these feelings deep down inside of him until they suffocated with all the other unhappiness he’d buried before. They shouldn’t let him, shouldn’t encourage him to cope like this. To cope the only way Harringtons ever did. Choke it all down, plaster on your winning smile, blot the blood from your lips when the bile tries to rise. 

  


His spot on the mattress burned through the night. A vacuum drawing in their warmth, their comfort, their sense of self. Two thirds had never felt further from a whole. 

  


He doesn’t come back the next day. 

  


Or the day after that. 

  


When he comes back a week later it’s to begin packing his things.

  


No amount of talking will solve the problem. His wants and needs are tearing him in two and he can’t take it anymore. He doesn’t remember how to affix his happy mask. 

  


He does smile at them at the end though, soft, tender. All the love he has in his heart is on his lips and in his eyes. He doesn’t say goodbye. Between people who have shared so much, become almost entirely a part of each other, a goodbye could never be sufficient.

  


Somehow two thirds becomes even less. It isn’t a glass half full or half empty, it is a glass by itself. He had been that essential life giving sustenance that had filled them up, blunted their rough edges with his gentleness and understanding.

  


They still love each other, but somehow they begin to grate. Things can’t go back to being just Nancy-and-Jonathan after having been Nancy-and-Jonathan-and-Steve for so long. Nancy-and-Jonathan has become as insufficient as a goodbye between them. 

  


They drift. They do their best to find other things to fill them up. They sit together, miserable and alone and empty. They learn the art of fake smiles and holding hands that feel cold and distant. They look at each other with lukewarm eyes and a canyon stretched between them. 

  


They don’t give up. They don’t give in. They scratch and scramble and do their best to patch up the holes as they develop, holding their fingers in the dike and praying for a drought. 

  


They leave frequently. Chase their stories, chase their monsters, chase their memories of the past. It’s a decade or more when they slow down enough to take notice of their surroundings. 

  


Everyone’s grown up. Married. Starting families. Are they afforded this luxury because they don’t have to worry about the monsters hidden in the cracks and caverns of their town? Can they have all these things because Nancy-and-Jonathan made that sacrifice for them? 

  


They never ask. 

  


It’s at Dustin’s housewarming party that they see him again. Everyone gathers to congratulate their young friend and his shy bride on their shared happiness. 

  


He’s timeless. His back is straight, his clothes neat, his shoes sensible, and his hair is huge. His smile is real, but unfamiliar. It doesn’t belong to them anymore. It belongs to the little girl in a fancy royal blue dress he holds in his arms like the sky holds the sun. She lights his every feature and the love that radiates from him is blinding in its intensity. 

  


Her eyes are dark agates, wide and delighted by everything she sees. Her hair is rich coffee brown, thick waves that frame her pixie face and brush her shoulders. It’s impossible not to see him in her, to miss the connection between the two. 

  


He’s happy as he gives her a tight squeeze against his strong chest, then bends carefully to let her down to run around with the other kids dotting the lawn. She squeals high and excited and bounds off to play without a thought. She’s going to ruin her pretty dress, but no one cares. She’s a kid. She’s not expected to sit still, to greet guests with a nod and polite handshake, to be seen and never heard. In her they see Steve’s past finally set free. She will never be called a disappointment. She will never not be good enough. 

  


He wears parenthood well. Better than his pale polo and smart sports coat, his thin framed glasses and dark loafers. 

  


If they are still struggling to make two-thirds into more, then he is surely whole. 

  


They avoid him all day. It isn’t hard, his eyes are always straight ahead, focused on only one thing, even when he can’t see her directly. 

  


After a full day of feeling mostly empty they retreat to the car, Nancy-and-Jonathan off on their own again to chase down monsters so others can live the lives they never could see fitting over themselves. 

  


He’s by their car, leaning casually against it, getting the back of his nice jacket covered in dust and dirt. He doesn’t care because of course he doesn’t. He never did. He spends his care on the things that matter. His head is tucked down and his expression soft as he holds his daughter against his chest in protective arms. 

  


He smiles when they get close, a real smile. It’s the moon in the dusk that has settled around them. 

  


“Joy.” He tells them. Her name. Taken from Jonathan’s mother’s name. She had been more of a parent to Steve than his own ever had and he had wanted to recognize that. From the ring on his finger they can only assume his wife had agreed to it.

  


They tell him it’s lovely because it is. 

  


Jonathan is touched and nauseous and wants to forget the car and grab Nancy by the hand and just run. Run away. Run far away from this man and his daughter and the memories of happiness they had all shared. Instead he smiles back and touches her hair softly. She’s beautiful because of course she is. Because Steve is and is incapable of creating something that isn’t, not when he pours all his love into it.

  


“I wanted you to know,” he nods finally, giving the tiny girl a quick hoist in his arms, repositioning her so her lolling head is supported and her eyes can flutter shut knowing it’s safe to do so. Nancy remembers a time when she rested against the same chest and felt the same sense of security. It makes her stand up straighter, makes her look him in the eye. This is the life they each chose, and even if most days she isn’t completely satisfied, she knows she wouldn’t choose any differently. She can meet Steve on the same level, and her firm hand pulls Jonathan up to stand close at her shoulder. 

  


They gaze at each other across a canyon and smile sadly. They remember. Joy gives a small hiccup and the spell is broken, their teen years and youth bled back into the past.

  


“Gotta get going,” he apologizes without really meaning it. “I didn’t want to skip this, it means a lot to Dustin. Lindsay is six months along though and not really feeling like travelling. She stayed home.” His face lights up with something wondrous and tender. “She’s hoping for a boy this time, but I kinda like the idea of another girl. It doesn’t matter though.” They can see how little it does, how happy he’ll be no matter what, just with another tiny life to hold on to and protect.

  


He begins to walk away to his car, a muted blue brand new 1997 BMW 5 series, because despite the passing of a decade this is still Steve, and beneath the exterior of a responsible adult still beats the heart of a teenager. Something about him will always remain eighteen and wild, carefree and full of the kind of intense helpless love that others forget as the years lay their weight across their shoulders.

  


They drive away, hands clasped over the middle console and they feel warm for the first time in years. Something laid to rest. A bridge building slowly across a chasm.

  


They learn to find each other, taking comfort in their shared sacrifices and the happiness those gifts have afforded others. The happiness they helped grant to someone who managed to find a new meaning in being whole without them, and who might have just taught them how to find whole again with just each other.

**Author's Note:**

> So this all came about due to a rather realistic response on Twitter to how Stoncy would handle parenthood. The quick answer is: They wouldn’t. If I could link you to it I would but it doesn’t seem to work for me. Anyways, I wrote this in the twenty minutes after I read the response because wow, it was sad and painful and I just caught that vibe full-on. Sorry for the angst.


End file.
